Mary Berry shares her go-to tip for cooking during a heatwave

Because no one wants to be standing over a hob in this heat

Temperatures are continuing to soar across the UK with forecasters predicting the unusually prolonged hot weather will continue for another couple of weeks.

With the sunshine comes longer days, outdoor activities, BBQs and a general uplift in the nation's mood, but as us Brits are not particularly used to it, day-to-day duties can feel slightly more laborious.

One of these tasks is cooking. The last thing we want to do in a heatwave is stand over a hob for 45 minutes adding more warmth into our periphery. So we asked Mary Berry for some help.

The acclaimed cook chatted about baking tips, taking part in officially the largest cream tea ever and what she'd recommend eating in the sweltering heat.

"Cooking things in the oven means you’re not staying over a heat," she tells us. "I would do a great big roasting tray of sausages. Put them in, brown them on one side and turn them over. Then add a whole lot of vegetables to that and oven-roast them."

Berry recommends complimenting your sausages with either Mediterranean or English garden vegetables but with lots of onion, either way. Alternatively, she suggests slow roasting a meat with vegetables around the outside or a stir fry which takes very little time on the hob.

The 83-year-old shared her advice the day after hosting the Cath Kidston World's Largest Cream Tea Party at Alexandra Palace in north London. With 978 guests all drinking a full cup of tea and eating a whole scone with jam and cream at the exact same time, the party officially broke the previous world record by 243 people. And Berry was "thrilled to bits" about it.

So, what goes into ensuring you have the perfect cream tea? According to Berry, it's all in the scone, which should be fresh and ideally baked on the day.

"The mixture must be wet," she said. "Often when children make them at school, they are handling it so much and it’s usually rather dry so they don’t get a good result. Scones should be a wet mixture that sticks to your hands and then handled very little before it’s cut out and then it wants to be baked at a high temperature for a fairly short time."

Berry also reveals she is "fairly neutral" on most things, which is why when she has a scone she does cream first, then jam on one side and jam first then cream on another "so not to upset anyone in either Devon or Cornwall".

As for a cake to add to the cream tea, Berry's go-to recipe is a classic Victoria Sandwich made swiftly and simply via the all-in-one method.

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